Retirement Confidence Is Declining. Holistic Planning Is the Antidote.

Financial advisors across the country are hearing the same underlying concern from clients, regardless of asset level or sophistication: “Are we actually going to be okay?”

This erosion of retirement confidence is not limited to market volatility or short-term economic noise. It reflects deeper uncertainty about whether traditional planning frameworks fully account for the risks, tradeoffs, and structural realities retirees face today as the world continues to become increasingly unstable.

For mass-affluent and higher-net-worth households in particular, this confidence gap often stems from an incomplete view of their own financial position.

Confidence Depends on Balance-Sheet Clarity, Not Just Portfolio Performance

Historically, retirement confidence has been supported by projections based primarily on liquid investment assets and guaranteed income sources like Social Security. While portfolios remain central, relying on them in isolation is increasingly insufficient.

Clients today face:

• Longer retirement horizons
• More volatile inflation regimes
• Rising healthcare and care-related expenses
• Greater sensitivity to sequence-of-returns risk
• Less certainty around Social Security and tax policy

In this environment, confidence is no longer driven by expected returns. It is driven by resilience, the ability of the entire financial structure to absorb stress.

That resilience cannot be accurately assessed without evaluating the full household balance sheet.

Housing Wealth Is Not a Side Asset for Affluent Retirees

For many mass-affluent and higher-net-worth households, the primary residence represents a significant portion of their net worth.

Yet in many plans, housing wealth is either:

• Assumed to be untouchable
• Deferred to an unspecified future decision
• Excluded from scenario modeling altogether

This omission creates a structural blind spot.

A plan that models only liquid assets while ignoring a major balance-sheet component is, by definition, incomplete. Even when clients never intend to access housing equity, failing to evaluate it leaves the advisor unable to assess opportunity cost, contingency options, or downside protection strategies.

Strategic Inclusion Does Not Mean Forced Utilization

Evaluating housing wealth does not imply that it must be used, monetized, or restructured. Strategic inclusion simply means acknowledging its role within the total balance sheet and understanding how it interacts with the rest of the plan.

For mass affluent retirees, housing wealth can influence:

• Income sustainability under stress
• Tax efficiency of withdrawal strategies
• Portfolio risk tolerance
• Liquidity during adverse market periods
• Long-term care and healthcare contingencies
• Legacy and net estate outcomes

When these interactions are not modeled, confidence suffers because client’s sense that part of their financial reality is missing from the conversation.

Stress Testing Is Where Housing Wealth Becomes Visible

Clients rarely lose confidence because projections look modestly lower. They lose confidence when they do not understand what happens if conditions change.

Stress testing reveals whether a plan is adaptable or brittle.

When advisors incorporate housing wealth into spending shocks to stress scenarios alongside market shocks, inflation spikes, longevity extensions, or healthcare events, they can more accurately demonstrate:

• Which risks are portfolio-dependent
• Which risks are balance-sheet dependent
• Where flexibility exists
• Where structural constraints emerge

This analysis often clarifies tradeoffs that were previously implicit or unexamined.

Holistic Planning Requires Intentional Balance-Sheet Integration

True holistic planning does not prioritize one asset class over another or look . It evaluates all household resources in context, without bias toward specific solutions.

For mass-affluent and higher-net-worth clients, this means:

• Treating housing wealth as a strategic planning variable, not a footnote
• Evaluating its impact on risk management, not just net worth statements
• Modeling it as part of contingency planning, not just estate planning

When advisors take this approach, clients gain clarity, not because they are being sold a solution, but because their full financial picture is finally being addressed.

Confidence Is Built Through Transparency, Not Optimism

In today’s retirement landscape, confidence does not come from optimistic assumptions or higher return forecasts. It comes from transparency and completeness.

Clients are more confident when they understand:

• What their plan depends on
• What assumptions matter most
• Where flexibility exists
• What options are available before they are needed

Advisors who integrate the full balance sheet into retirement planning, especially housing wealth, provide clients with a clearer, more durable framework for decision-making.

In an era marked by uncertainty, comprehensive planning is not a differentiator. It is a responsibility.

And for many households, that responsibility begins by acknowledging that retirement confidence cannot be fully experienced without evaluating the entire balance sheet, housing wealth included.

Find a checklist for Holistic, Total Balance Sheet Planning on the Equity Wealth Strategies website HERE